The present disclosure relates to rapid recharging circuits and recharging stations for electric vehicles.
Battery electric vehicles were developed more than a century ago, yet the usage of plug-in battery electric vehicles is still limited to some short distance, low speed transportation such as golf carts, commuting carts in big buildings and manufacturing facilities, and handicap vehicles. Although many different models of electric cars have been developed, none of them have achieved the market acceptance of vehicles powered by internal combustion engines.
However, recent awareness of human activity's impacts on environment pollution has propelled the need to develop green vehicle alternatives to gasoline-powered vehicles such as electric vehicles.
One issue with electric vehicles is the battery capacity/weight. Currently, most electric cars offer a range of 50-60 miles before they need to be recharged. However, most garages or parking meters do not offer power plugs to recharge these cars.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,532,418 discloses a structure for charging an electric vehicle at a parking location and facilitating billing for the charging energy utilized and the parking time. The structure includes a charging and parking meter at a parking space for receiving a charge card and into which a charging plug from an electric vehicle may be placed, structure for reading the charge card placed in the meter and for locking the plug in place, and a central processor unit for determining the charging energy used and parking time and for storing billing data relative thereto at a remote location, for periodic removal to facilitate billing. The parking meter permits charging of an electric vehicle at a parking location in response to use of a charge card and stores charging and parking information for subsequent retrieval to facilitate billing to the owner of the charge card.